HBO Delayed 'Westworld' To Figure Out the Next Few Seasons

HBO has a lot riding on its upcoming Westworld adaptation, and we don’t just mean the horses. Production delays have left many wondering if the series might go the way of Vinyl with another one-season flop, but according to reports, HBO actually scheduled the delay to map out five or six more seasons’ worth of Westworld.

Entertainment Weekly reports that where previously Westworld bosses Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy used the break in production to catch up on scripts for the ambitious production, the story concerns were actually far more wide-ranging. According to James Marsden, producers intended to map out the full scope of the series, and lay more specific groundwork in Season 1:

It wasn’t about getting the first 10 [episodes] done, it was about mapping out what the next 5 or 6 years are going to be. We wanted everything in line so that when the very last episode airs and we have our show finale, five or seven years down the line, we knew how it was going to end the first season – that’s the way Jonah and [executive producer J.J. Abrams] operate. They’re making sure all the ducks are in the row. And it’s a testament to Jonah and Lisa and HBO that we got them right, especially the last three scripts. They could have rushed them and get spread too thin. They got them right, and when they were right, we went and shot them.

Even more, Nolan himself teased that the setup for future seasons might change drastically from what we know of the series:

We didn’t want to have a story that repeated itself [each year]. We didn’t want the Fantasy Island version of this [where new guests arrive at the park every season]. We wanted a big story. We wanted the story of the origin of a new species and how that would play out in its complexity.

We’ll see the start of that vision on October 2, but is a Westworld renewal already in sight? Will the delays have been worth it?